"I think I do."

"You must understand me," said Norman, striving to speak calmly. "You have been--words will not express what you have been to me for years past, but I thought you too far beyond my hopes. I knew I ought to be removed from you--I believed that those who are debarred from earthly happiness are marked for especial tasks. I never intended you to know what actuated me, and now the work is undertaken, and--and I cannot turn back," he added quickly, as if fearing himself.

"No indeed," was her steady reply.

"Then I may believe it!" cried Norman. "You do--you will--you deliberately choose to share it with me?"

"I will try not to be a weight on you," answered the young girl, with a sweet mixture of resolution and humility. "It would be the greatest possible privilege. I really do not think I am a fine lady ingrain, and you will teach me not to be too unworthy."

"I? Oh, Meta, you know not what I am! Yet with you, with you to inspire, to strengthen, to cheer--Meta, Meta, life is so much changed before me, that I cannot understand it yet--after the long dreary hopelessness--"

"I can't think why--" Meta had half said, when feminine dignity checked the words, consciousness and confusion suddenly assailed her, dyed her cheeks crimson, and stifled her voice.

It was the same with Norman, and bashfulness making a sudden prey of both--on they went under its dominion, in a condition partaking equally of discomfort and felicity; dreading the sound of their own voices, afraid of each other's faces, feeling they were treating each other very strangely and ungratefully, yet without an idea what to say next, or the power of speaking first; and therefore pacing onwards, looking gravely straight along the path, as if to prevent the rabbits and foxgloves from guessing that anything had been passing between them.

Dr. May had made his call at Drydale, and was driving up a rough lane, between furzy banks, leading to Cocksmoor, when he was aware of a tall gentleman on one side of the road and a little lady on the other, with the whole space of the cart-track between them, advancing soberly towards him.

"Hallo! Why, Meta! Norman! what brings you here? Where are you going?"

Norman perceived that he had turned to the left instead of to the right, and was covered with shame.

"That is all your wits are good for. It is well I met you, or you would have led poor Meta a pretty dance! You will know better than to trust yourself to the mercies of a scholar another time. Let me give you a lift."

The courteous doctor sprang out to hand Meta in, but something made him suddenly desire Adams to drive on, and then turning round to the two young people, he said, "Oh!"

"Yes," said Norman, taking her hand, and drawing her towards him.

"What, Meta, my pretty one, is it really so? Is he to be happy after all? Are you to be a Daisy of my own?"

"If you will let me," murmured Meta, clinging to her kind old friend.

"No flower on earth could come so naturally to us," said Dr. May. "And, dear child, at last I may venture to tell you that you have a sanction that you will value more than mine. Yes, my dear, on the last day of your dear father's life, when some foreboding hung upon him, he spoke to me of your prospects, and singled out this very Norman as such as he would prefer."

Meta's tears prevented all, save the two little words, "thank you;" but she put out her hand to Norman, as she still rested on the doctor's arm, more as if he had been her mother than Norman's father.

"Did he?" from Norman, was equally inexpressive of the almost incredulous gratitude and tenderness of his feeling.

It would not bear talking over at that moment, and Dr. May presently broke the silence in a playful tone. "So, Meta, good men don't like heiresses?"

"Quite true," said Meta, "it was very much against me."

"Or it may be the other way," said Norman.

"Eh? Good men don't like heiresses--here's a man who likes an heiress--therefore here's a man that is not good? Ah, ha! Meta, you can see that is false logic, though I've forgotten mine. And pray, miss, what are we to say to your uncle?"

"He cannot help it," said Meta quickly.

"Ha!" said the doctor, laughing, "we remember our twenty-one years, do we?"

"I did not mean--I hope I said nothing wrong," said Meta, in blushing distress. "Only after what you said, I can care for nothing else."

"If I could only thank him," said Norman fervently.

"I believe you know how to do that, my boy," said Dr. May, looking tenderly at the fairy figure between them, and ending with a sigh, remembering, perhaps, the sense of protection with which he had felt another Margaret lean on his arm.

The clatter of horses' hoofs caused Meta to withdraw her hand, and Norman to retreat to his own side of the lane, as Sir Henry Walkinghame and his servant overtook them.

"We will be in good time for the proceedings," called out the doctor.

"Tell them we are coming."

"I did not know you were walking," said Sir Henry to Meta.

"It is pleasant in the plantations," Dr. May answered for her; "but I am afraid we are late, and our punctual friends will be in despair. Will you kindly say we are at hand?"

Sir Henry rode on, finding that he was not to be allowed to walk his horse with them, and that Miss Rivers had never looked up.

"Poor Sir Henry!" said Dr. May.

"He has no right to be surprised," said Meta, very low.

"And so you were marching right upon Drydale!" continued Dr. May, not able to help laughing. "It was a happy dispensation that I met you."

"Oh, I am so glad of it!" said Meta.

"Though to be sure you were disarming suspicion by so cautiously keeping the road between you. I should never have guessed what you had been at."

There was a little pause, then Meta said, rather tremulously, "Please--I think it should be known at once."

"Our idle deeds confessed without loss of time, miss?"

Norman came across the path, saying, "Meta is right--it should be known."

"I don't think Uncle Cosham would object, especially hearing it while he is here," said Meta--"and if he knew what you told us."

"He goes to-morrow, does he not?" said Dr. May.

A silence of perplexity ensued. Meta, brave as she was, hardly knew her uncle enough to volunteer, and Norman was privately devising a beginning by the way of George, when Dr. May said, "Well, since it is not a case for putting Ethel in the forefront, I must e'en get it over for you, I suppose."

"Oh, thank you," they cried both at once, feeling that he was the proper person in every way, and Norman added, "The sooner the better, if Meta--"

"Oh, yes, yes, the sooner the better," exclaimed Meta. "And let me tell Flora--poor dear Flora--she is always so kind."

A testimony that was welcome to Dr. May, who had once, at least, been under the impression that Flora courted Sir Henry's attentions to her sister-in-law.

Further consultation was hindered by Tom and Blanche bursting upon them from the common, both echoing Norman's former reproach of "A pretty guide!" and while Blanche explained the sufferings of all the assembly at their tardiness, Tom, without knowing it, elucidated what had been a mystery to the doctor, namely, how they ever met, by his indignation at Norman's having assumed the guidance for which he was so unfit.

"A shocking leader; Meta will never trust him again," said Dr. May.